Thursday, January 01, 2009

The reasons for this blog

I'm going to be really honest here. Husband and I just took a hard look at our home finances and we are spending everything we make, saving nothing and in December we pulled $750.00 from savings to pay for trips and presents and still have $900 in credit card debt. I'm so aggravated I could eat nails!!!

I've been successful in my job as a Director of Product development by relentless hammering my Asia and creative teams on all aspects of toy development. I'm both loved and hated with equal passion due to my relentless pounding on every single minute detail. Is it possible I can put the same focus on my home finances???

Review of 2008: 1. I had a baby and drained savings.2. Since having baby, husband has cut back work hours by 3 days to stay home with baby. 3. I need a new digital camera because we spilled tea on our camera and the repair shop has deemed it unrepairable. Not only did I pay $90 for worthless repair, I now need to cough up $133 for new camera (which originally cost $250, but on sale now) so I'm getting a deal right? 4. Still bitter about $650 spent on cat's tail stitches which he immediately pulled out thus causing end of tail to fall off. Need more savings to account for unexpected issues such as this although will not be revisiting the vet for pointless tail issues.5. Work health insurance has increased $200 per month. Loss of income!!! Scream. Eat more nails.6. Every vacation taken this year was paid for by credit cards.7. We bought a condo in 2005 with a 5 year interest only mortgage and no money down. This condo has lost 40% value which means the only sensible thing to do is stay in Florida far longer then planned and make additional payments on principle so that in 2010, when our mortgage is reassessed we don't suffocate on the payments. The last 6 months we have not been paying the principle and it's high time we get our collective heads out of the sand and make this extra payment.

This past year I've found many creative ways to crunch our budget but as you can see from 1-6 it's not enough.

Today I created a very tough budget for 2009 and when finished I realized it's still not enough to reach all my goals. So I've decided to start this blog as an attempt to mark every discovery of a dollar saved. One year from now, I will proudly announce the $$$ saved. I'm even going to look for a barometer to calculate the savings as I go along. So cheer me on, give me your ideas and most of all pray I keep my sanity with all the salvaging of pennies and dollars. Who knows, it might even turn into a fun game!